Making Your Own Pumpkin Puree

Fall is in the air and pumpkin recipes are everywhere! I love eating pumpkin all year long, but in the fall the rest of the world (well, at least the country) joins me.

Do you know what makes pumpkin recipes even better?

Making your own pumpkin puree!

Seriously. If you’ve never tried making homemade pumpkin puree, then make this year your time to give it a try! You’ll be so glad you did.

Making your own pumpkin puree is better for your body and your budget. When you make homemade pumpkin puree, you don’t have to worry about any weird preservatives. Plus, it’s waaay cheaper than buying the canned stuff.

Originally published 11/11/2013

Our 2013 harvest included a couple hundred pounds of pumpkin. We carved three of them with the kids and donated one of the big ones (70 lbs) to a charity auction where it sold for $70! The rest we pureed and froze.

How we use homemade pumpkin puree

We use pumpkin puree instead of canned pumpkin for all things pumpkin, including:

pumpkin custard (pretty much just a deep pumpkin pie without the crust)

pumpkin soup

How to make pumpkin puree step-by-step

Making your own pumpkin puree is really easy. If you don’t have much freezer space, you can still puree a pumpkin and keep the puree in the fridge for a couple weeks while you try all the yummy pumpkin recipes you find on Pinterest.

Don’t be fooled into thinking you can only use pumpkins labeled as “pie pumpkins” for this. Any pumpkins will work well and be healthy and delicious. Actually any winter squash will work just fine (banana squash, butternut squash, etc).

Start by cleaning cutting your pumpkin in half and cleaning out the guts. Don’t be intimidated by the slime factor here. I promise it’s way easier than trying to squeeze your arm down inside a pumpkin to clean it out to carve a jack-o-lantern. Grab an ice cream scoop to scrape out all the stringy and seedy parts. You can save the seeds to roast later.

Lay your pumpkin halves on a cookie sheet with the skin side up. This keeps the meaty inside of the pumpkin nice and moist. You don’t need to worry about covering your pan with anything. The pumpkin juices wash off very easily.

Stick your pumpkins in the oven at 350 degrees. It will probably take around 45 minutes, but it will vary depending on the thickness of the meat. If you have large pumpkins (like I did), you may want to move your oven racks down lower (like I didn’t) to prevent scorching the skin (though it doesn’t affect the meat). You will want to check on them after 30 minutes to see how they are doing, though they could take up to an hour. When a knife goes into the meat effortlessly, you will know they are done.

The next part is my favorite. The skin just peels away! But before you get started, let the pumpkins cool for a while because they are hot! When you can actually touch them, you can easily peel most of the skin off with your hands (and it’s fun!). Sometimes you will need to use a knife on the edges.

As you peel off the skin, you can put the chunks of pumpkin meat into your food processor or blender. When I’m doing lots of pumpkin (which I usually am), I use a food processor, but a blender works fine too.

Meet Gonzo. I bet you can’t guess where he picked up that nickname! Does your food processor have a name? Gonzo has proven to be one of our most useful wedding gifts. Unfortunately, they no longer make him any more, but it’s similar to this food processor.

I put all the pumpkin puree into several large containers and stick them in the fridge while I wait to use or freeze the pumpkin puree.

Freezing pumpkin puree

There are a couple of different methods for freezing pumpkin puree. If you aren’t worried about specific measurements, you can just put the pumpkin puree directly into Ziploc freezer bags to freeze. For soup or large batches of baked goods this is fine.

Another method of freezing pumpkin puree is to measure the pumpkin puree as you put it in bags. Measuring the pumpkin puree makes it much easier when it comes time to use. Lay the bags flat as you freeze them so they store nice and compact.

Personally, I like to freeze pumpkin in batches in plastic containers. I love these Rubbermaid storage containers because the bottom of each container says how many cups it holds, so it is easy to thaw for recipes (they are also awesome containers for lunches, because they don’t ever leak). I find this method much easier than continually scraping out a measuring cup into a Ziplock bag, but with the convenience of measuring.

After the pumpkin puree is frozen in the containers, I let it begin to thaw slightly (about 15 minutes on the counter). After thawing for a few minutes it pops right out of the plastic containers. I double wrap each block in plastic wrap. Then, I fill each container up a again with more puree from the fridge and freeze another batch.

After each block is wrapped in plastic, I store them in the freezer in Ziplock freezer bags. I usually use mine within a year or two (in the chest freezer) without any problems

Making my own pumpkin puree allows me to do much more baking of fall pumpkin treats than I would if I had to buy a canned pumpkin each time. We just can’t get enough pumpkin!

This post has affiliate links to products that I know to be awesome and think you’ll love too! If you make a purchase through one of my links, I will get a small percentage of the sale (at no extra cost to you) and be very grateful! 😉

You’ll Also Enjoy

Free when you subscribe!

Get frugal inspiration and financial motivation in your inbox every week, plus you'll also get the Guide to Getting a Month Ahead Financially for free!

Now check your email to confirm your subscription so I can send you my Guide to Getting a Month Ahead Financially!

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

First Name

Best Email Address

We use this field to detect spam bots. If you fill this in, you will be marked as a spammer.

I'd like to receive the free email course. Your email is safe with us. We won't share it with anyone. Powered by ConvertKit

Comments

I love pumpkin puree at home, but I find it is even easier to just throw whole pumpkins in the oven for a little bit longer – like 60-70 minutes–then cut and clean out the guts after cooking. I’ve been using mine to make a baked pumpkin pie quinoa porridge that my kids and my husband really love.

That’s a great idea Jen! Mine were definitely too big to put in whole (they were a little too close to the heating element even when they were cut in half), but that sounds like it would work well for smaller pumpkins. Thanks for sharing.

So this was my first time making pumpkin puree and it’s not really puree. Help me trouble shoot? The pumpkins were bought early in October but hadn’t been carved so today I cut them in half, gutted and popped them in the oven. At 45-60 minutes, the pumpkins were knife tender but the skin was still attached. I let it cool but then had to use a knife, like with a potato, and cut the skin off.

Now for blending right? My blender isn’t blending a thing and I sold off my food processor for some $ to pay stuff down (regretting this move at this moment). So I cut the pumpkin up in smaller chunks and used a hand mixer. It’s tons better but not smooth enough for a puree.

Is it worth refrigerating and freezing it? Do I keep mixing on high? I’ve never made anything with pumpkin but didn’t want 4 pumpkins that hadn’t been carved to go to waste.

Could you post some pumpkin recipes and will my “not puree” work with those recipes?

First of all Liz, congarats on trying something new (even if it didn’t turn out quite like you expected). I would say that it probably could have used a little more time in the oven if the skin didn’t come off the skin easily. Maybe your pumpkins were really thick.

As for the blending, you could add a bit of water to the pumpkin in your blender to help it get going. It’s also easier to blend if it isn’t completely cooled down (not steaming hot, but still warm). You might have to push it down bit a wooden spoon (but be careful not to touch the blender blades, of course).

Now that you’ve hand blended it, you might want to try putting it in the blender again to make it a little smoother. Add a couple teaspoons of water if it seems dry or really chunky. If it seems like it isn’t cooked enough, I would suggest putting it in the microwave to heat it and soften it (get it really hot). You could even use a potato masher to smash it up or stick it back in the blender.

It’s definitely worth keeping. Before freezing it, I would experiment with using the “puree” as it is (or with the troubleshooting above) and see how it works. When you know it works in recipes and is a decently smooth consistency, then freeze it (it will save you trouble later, if you get it right before freezing).

Thanks for this wonderful reminder, Stephanie! I’ve done this pumpkin saving before but don’t get to it every year. I’ve used the best pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe and cheese cake recipe (we never forget to make these!) for over a decade. Both yummy and healthy (mostly). If you don’t mind my sharing here, they are both posted on my blog.http://runranfam.blogspot.com/2015/10/pumpkin-poem-and-cheese-cake.html
Thanks for your encouraging blog. It is a favorite!

I have been making my purée for years. I get so many compliments on my pumpkin bread. If you have never tried fresh pumpkin, you should. You will never buy canned pumpkin again. I get the “guts” out then cut in up. I place it in my roasting pan, add some water and cover. I bake it for about an hour. I put it in the food processor till it’s smooth, then put it into a strainer and leave it to drain, sometimes for a couple of hours. Some pumpkins have a lot of water and some, not so much. In the past when I did not drain my pumpkin, my breads would not turn out to well. I have used all kinds of pumpkins, but I prefer jack-o-lantern pumpkins. They produce more pumpkin and they are cheaper. I can’t taste the difference between the pie pumpkins and jack-o-lantern types. I also wait till the day after Halloween and rack up on some cheap pumpkins. The good thing is you don’t have to cook them right away either. My brother in law gave me one that he used as decoration for a month and it was still just as good as I had just bought it fresh from the vine. It’s nice to hear that I’m not the only one who cooks their pumpkins.

I totally agree Sherry! Stores sell those tiny pumpkins that are marketed as “pie pumpkins,” but I’m convinced it’s just that– marketing. Big jack-o-lantern size pumpkins is that we always use too. One year after halloween our grocery store had a sign outside that said “FREE” so you better believe we loaded up the car! 🙂